About two years ago, I was in a therapy session with my former but forever therapist, Dr. Dylesia (please say the “doctor,” we’re very proud of her for getting her Ph.D.!). I was having one of my trademark spirals, feeling like I’m doing everything wrong, including therapy.
I felt like I was caught in a paradox of trying to simultaneously love myself for who I am while also trying to change myself into who I should be. I was nervous about showing up to therapy because I wasn’t “fixed” yet. I was still making poor (read: toxic) relationship choices, still making mistakes in my communication, and still struggling with anxiety and depression. I literally felt like I wasn’t good enough for therapy (which honestly spoke to how much I actually needed to be in therapy).
I shared these feelings with Dylesia and she reminded me that the point of therapy was to learn tools, behaviors, and coping mechanisms to help live a life that is happy, healthy, healing, and whole. If I ever feel like I’m doing the wrong things, ask myself: are the actions I’m taking and choices I’m making bringing me closer to feeling happy? Healthy? Healed? Whole? If not, I needed to change course. But in reality, I probably needed to give myself more credit for the progress I’d made so far.
“Happy. Healthy. Healing. Whole.” Those words became something of a mantra after that session and they’ve been repeating in my head a whole lot lately, especially since I celebrated my 33rd birthday in June and my 4th consecutive year of being in therapy🎉. I keep thinking about whether I’ve made strides in becoming more happy, healthy, healed, and whole since I first heard those words, and I’m imagining what a happy, healthy, healed, whole life could possibly look like in the future.
When I’ve been overthinking about something, it’s time to pull out the journal. And I’m sharing my entries with you.
Every Friday in July will be assigned a different word from this mantra and that will be my prompt for the day. HAPPY. HEALTHY. HEALING. WHOLE. What does it mean to be truly happy? How am I supposed to gain and maintain new healthy relationships? When will I know that I’m fully healed? Why does being a whole person mean embracing both the good and not-so-good characteristics of myself? I’ll be thinking through all these things and more in my journaling newsletter and my podcast this month and I hope you’ll join me for the journey.